Talbot's House

Forgive a small note of pride, but we are so lucky to have such fine men in our house. One of the strengths of boarding is the fact that you end up meeting and sharing life with people you never normally would otherwise. In a world where conflict and dogma dominates our headlines it is a pleasure to watch our lads hanging out together on a  Friday night as we have done this evening intent only on relaxing and laughing together and celebrating each others' successes. After devouring enough pizza to sink a large ship and cheering on lads promoted from the D to the C team and filling out the 4th XI, we have a time when everyone purposely spend time with one another. On the table tennis table is boys of four different year groups from five different countries, sportsmen, musicians, creatives, academics (often all in one) pushing each other to be 'king' and rule the table amidst constant hilarity. Behind them three chaps, different years and nationality chill out playing pool whilst behind them boys from three different year groups and four different countries play another epic game of Fifa.

They are small things but it strikes me that these lads will leave with a much more global outlook than the generations that went before them and perhaps will be even better equipped to find solutions and make a difference across cultures...

Who knows, but what we do know is we are terrifically lucky to spend term time watching these amazing young men grow and develop. Our differences our are strength!

The Barn as it should be...

Pizza time...

This week Friday is welcome!!! The lads are really working hard and pushing on through the dark evenings. The strength of their efforts are evidenced by the growing merit totals at school, as you'll see below.

The meeting started with a solemn act of remembrance as we briefly eulogised the loss of two chickens to the fox last night!

We picked the mood up though with an attempt at this week's competition to know a word in every language that is spoken in the house. A number of men tried but none succeeded with Harun, the last man in undone by Nico's command of Swahili after his trip to Tanzania last summer.

This week we already celebrated Dan's success as part of the U14 county winning Hockey side and Harun and Fuga continuing to go well for the Basketball team. The fourth and Remove formers also did a terrific job welcoming visitors from eagle house today.

This week's Top Bloke was awarded to Sam though who made his debut for the Basketball side.

In other teams this week Adrian will be part of the 1st team Badminton squad tomorrow. In Football, Nico, John and Fuga continue for the 1st team but are superceded in excitement levels as Nihat, Alex.C and Hodges all turn out for the 4th XI tomorrow; I think there will be a number of men supporting at 2pm tomorrow!
In Hockey, Danny is in goal for the U14D's whilst Tizian has been promoted to the C team. Dan will continue to run out for the A team. Dom.B will play for the U16B with Charlie in the 3rds and Gabe and Kighty in the 1st team.

In merits this week it was a rollover as  there was no celebration prior to Exeat. The following made this week's table:
1: Hodges, Simon
2: Ken, Luke, Adrian, Sam, Brady
3: George and Ben.W
4: Dunc, Alex.S and Gabe
5: Alex.C, Edwin, Stephen, Lennart, Tizian
6 (and kings of merits): Harun and Alvin

This week's room of the week (for improvement apparently ;-) ) was Jonas and Alex.K

Man of the week goes to Igor who is working really ahrd on his running and finished his 100th km of the month this week, a great effort considering he always runs in his free time and doesn't do it for games.

This week's prize winners.....

Love the pizza on Friday nights!!!

Apologies for missing last week's entry but below are the Friday Celebration prizes for this week. They were followed up by some much enjoyed burgers and the usual social time for the whole house, we love Fridays!

we started off celebrating Harun's amazing contributions to the basketball matches this term where he scored a large percentage of the team's points and was joined in the game by teepee and Fuga on Thursday. Benno and Dom also scored for the match. It was our turn to serve at chapel tonight and Ben.K and Charlie made terrific ushers whilst Jonas and Alex.S kept up the tradition of us definitely having the best readers! This week Dan.R and Tiz also entered the fourth form table tennis competition. Dan featured very well but was pipped by by Tizian who won it! Ben. W played wonderfully in the Music Scholars' concert on Thursday, watched by a number of visiting prep school heads of music, pressure!

In teams this week we have:
Hockey: U14D: Danny and Tizian, U14A: Dan, 1st Team: Ben.K, Crows and Gabriel
Football: U15B: Curtis and Edwin, U15A Alvin and Stephen, who scored both goals in last week's 2-2 draw. In the seniors Alex.C and Hodges will run out for the 4ths with Fuga, John and Nico representing the first team.

It was good to see a rising merit count this week from the following lads:

1: Ben.W, Jonas, George, Harun, Charlie, Benno
2: Lennart, Ben.K, Alex.S
3: Tizian, Brady, Charles
4: Dan.S
and king of merits with 6 was Alvin

This, alongside his character this week and getting a crucial goal last weekend made him man of the week.

Adrian was Top Bloke for stepping up and doing a great job in house badminton, where we came 4th.